Install TeamForge with an External PostgreSQL Server

You can install TeamForge with its database installed separately on an external PostgreSQL server such as AWS RDS/Aurora.

You can install TeamForge with its database installed separately on an external PostgreSQL server such as AWS RDS/Aurora. These instructions are for installing TeamForge in a three-server distributed setup with TeamForge and EventQ on two separate servers. All database services are hosted on a third server, which is an external PostgreSQL server not directly managed by TeamForge.

You can install TeamForge on both RHEL/CentOS 7.4 and 6.9.

In this distributed setup, TeamForge services are distributed across three servers, server-01 through server-03 as illustrated in the following table. It is assumed that server-03 is an externally managed PostgreSQL server.

Look for new or modified site-options.conf tokens and update your site-options.conf file as required during the upgrade process. See Site Options Change Log.

Set up a TeamForge Stage Server before you upgrade your Production Server.

Stop TeamForge services on all servers in a distributed setup while upgrading to TeamForge 18.1.

Uninstall hot fixes and add-ons, if any, before you start the TeamForge 18.1 upgrade procedure.

TeamForge 18.1 supports Java 9. As a result of changes to the logging framework in Java 9, the PrintGCDetails and PrintGCTimeStamps logging options are no longer supported. Remove these options from the following tokens while upgrading to TeamForge 18.1 or later.

JBOSS_JAVA_OPTS

PHOENIX_JAVA_OPTS

INTEGRATION_JAVA_OPTS

ETL_JAVA_OPTS

ELASTICSEARCH_JAVA_OPTS

TeamForge provision fails on sites that use these options post TeamForge 18.1 upgrade.

Don'ts

Do not customize your operating system installation. Select only the default packages list.

While upgrading TeamForge, whether in place or on new hardware, always reuse the old site-options.conf file and make changes as necessary. Do not try to start with a new site-options.conf file. Reusing the old site-options.conf avoids many potential problems, particularly around the management of usernames and passwords.

Do not manually modify TeamForge-managed site option tokens such as the AUTO_DATA token. See AUTO_DATA for more information.

If you are creating symlinks, note that you must create symlinks only to the TeamForge data directory (/opt/collabnet/teamforge/var). You should not create symlinks to TeamForge application directories (such as /opt/collabnet).

Points to Remember

Installing or upgrading TeamForge needs root privileges. You must log on as root or use a root shell to install or upgrade TeamForge.

SSL is enabled by default and a self-signed certificate is auto-generated. However, you can use a few site-options.conf tokens to adjust this behavior. To generate the SSL certificates, see Generate SSL Certificates.

For the ETL service to run as expected in a distributed TeamForge installation, all servers must have the same time zone.

If you have Git integration on a separate server, both TeamForge and Git servers must have their time and date synchronized.

While you can run both EventQ and TeamForge on the same server, CollabNet recommends such an approach only for testing purposes. It’s always recommended to run EventQ on a separate server for optimal scalability.

No backup is required for same hardware upgrades. However, you can create a backup as a measure of caution. See Back up and Restore TeamForge for more information.

Installing TeamForge with service-specific FQDNs (instead of machine-specific host/domain names) is highly recommended so that you will be able to change the system landscape at a later point in time without having any impact on the URLs (in other words, end users do not have to notice or change anything). For example, you can create FQDNs specifically for services such as Subversion, Git, mail, Codesearch and so on. For more information, see Service-specific FQDNs.

All such service-specific FQDNs must be long to a single sub domain and it is recommended to create a new sub domain for TeamForge.

If you are using service-specific FQDNs

A wildcard SSL cert is required. SNI SSL cert cannot be used.

When SSL is enabled and no custom SSL certificates are provided, a self-signed wildcard cert is generated for the sub domain.

When SSL is enabled and a custom SSL certificate is provided, the CN of the certificate is verified to be a wildcard CN.

You cannot have a separate PUBLIC_FQDN for EventQ.

The ability to run separate PostgreSQL instances for TeamForge database and datamart on the same server is being deprecated in TeamForge 17.11. If you have TeamForge database and datamart on separate PostgreSQL instances on the same server and if you are upgrading on a new hardware, you must Create a Single Cluster for Both Database and Datamart while upgrading to TeamForge 17.11 or later.

While upgrading TeamForge-Git integration servers, it is important that Git master and slave servers are upgraded to the same version of TeamForge-Git integration. On sites with Git Replica Servers, you must upgrade the Git Replica Servers first and then upgrade the master Git servers.

Prepare the Servers for TeamForge Installation (server-01 and server-02)

Install RHEL/CentOS 7.4 and log on as root.

The host must be registered with the Red Hat Network if you are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

In addition to the above CentOS 7.4 64 bit RPM package, you must get the following CentOS 7.4 compatibility RPM, which is required for TeamForge 18.1 disconnected media installation on CentOS 7.4 profile: compat-ctf-dc-media-1.0-1.el7.centos.noarch.rpm.

Unpack the disconnected installation package.

rpm -ivh <package-name>

Unpack the compat-ctf-dc-media-1.0-1.el7.centos.noarch.rpm package if you are installing TeamForge 18.1 on CentOS 7.4.

rpm -ivh compat-ctf-dc-media-1.0-1.el7.centos.noarch.rpm

If not mounted already, mount the RHEL/CentOS installation DVD.

The DVD contains the necessary software and utilities required for installing TeamForge without internet access. In the following commands, replace “cdrom” with the identifier for your server’s CD/DVD drive, if necessary.

cd /media/
mkdir cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom ./cdrom/

If there are any spaces in the automount, unmount it first and mount it as a filepath, with no spaces.

Create a yum configuration file that points to the RHEL/CentOS installation DVD.

Install TeamForge Services

Prepare the External Database Server for TeamForge Installation

Log on to the Database Server and create the TeamForge database, datamart, Gerrit database, Binary database and Review Board database. Note down the following credentials that are required to set up the TeamForge site-options.conf tokens later in the process.

In addition to the above CentOS 7.4 64 bit RPM package, you must get the following CentOS 7.4 compatibility RPM, which is required for TeamForge 18.1 disconnected media installation on CentOS 7.4 profile: compat-ctf-dc-media-1.0-1.el7.centos.noarch.rpm.

Unpack the disconnected installation package.

rpm -ivh <package-name>

Unpack the compat-ctf-dc-media-1.0-1.el7.centos.noarch.rpm package if you are installing TeamForge 18.1 on CentOS 7.4.

rpm -ivh compat-ctf-dc-media-1.0-1.el7.centos.noarch.rpm

If not mounted already, mount the RHEL/CentOS installation DVD.

The DVD contains the necessary software and utilities required for installing TeamForge without internet access. In the following commands, replace “cdrom” with the identifier for your server’s CD/DVD drive, if necessary.

cd /media/
mkdir cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom ./cdrom/

If there are any spaces in the automount, unmount it first and mount it as a filepath, with no spaces.

Create a yum configuration file that points to the RHEL/CentOS installation DVD.

Warning: The Password Control Kit (PCK) disables, deletes or expires user accounts that don’t meet the password security requirements starting from the date set for the PASSWORD_CONTROL_EFFECTIVE_DATE token. If a date is not set, the PCK disables, deletes or expires user accounts immediately. See PASSWORD_CONTROL_EFFECTIVE_DATE for more information.

You can also set the following tokens to enforce a more stricter password policy:

Prevent Cross-site Scripting

An attacker could potentially upload an HTML page to TeamForge that contains active code, such as JavaScript. This active code would then be executed by clients’ browsers when they view the page, which can harm the system.

To prevent an attack of this sort, you can specify whether or not HTML code is displayed in TeamForge. This flag applies to all documents, tracker, task, and forum attachments, and files in the file release system.

Set the SAFE_DOWNLOAD_MODE token according to your requirements. For more information, see SAFE_DOWNLOAD_MODE.

Provision Services on All the Servers

You must provision services in a particluar sequence. Usually you start with the Database Server, followed by the Application Server and then by other servers such as the EventQ server.

The TeamForge installer derives this sequence from your site-options.conf file and shows you the order of provisioning servers when you try to provision one of the distributed servers. Follow the exact sequence as instructed.

Provision the Database Server (server-03)

Provision the Application Server (server-01)

Provision the EventQ Server (server-02)

Verify TeamForge Installation

Verify TeamForge installation.

Reboot the server and make sure all services come up automatically at startup.

Log on to the TeamForge web application using the default Admin credentials.